Tuesday 31 January 2012

The leaving of a loving father.


31 January 2012 marks the leaving of another loving father. A father with a strong fighting spirit that takes blows after blows of punches from life, standing up every single time till this day.


A father who put his family needs above his, worked hard to provide for his family and always giving in to his family’s request. A father who endures the severe pain and still makes funny faces to cheer his grandchild.


Farewell to the father who will always be remembered.

Monday 30 January 2012

The paralysed runner.





Saw the familiar man having his daily evening run. This time, my timing is just right to see him up close.


In his early 50s, a strong body with thinning and graying hairs, jogging at a consistent pace I will never be able to achieve. Oh yes, his right hand and leg were visibly less flexible and agile, showing signs of a possibly recovery from a stroke.


There are many examples out there of people fighting for their life and living a positive lifestyle. The question is do we have the courage and determination to be like them if it happened to us?


Goodnight everybody.

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Accepting other's flaws.

Are you likely to accept the little flaws of an elderly person sitting on a wheelchair, weak and not able to carry out a decent conversation?

Bodhipaksa, in the article "Learning to love the flaws" fromWildmind Buddhist Meditation taught me a simple and yet effective method to accept other's flaws.

The method requires us to place the person whose flaws or action had agitated us in our mind. On his right, imagine a much younger him, say when he is a few months old, who is new to this world, pure and yet to master the skills to talk and walk. On his left, imagine a much older him in his seventies, old, weak, likely seated on a wheelchair and not able to gather enough strength for a decent conversation. Now, recall the same person at the centre with his flaws or action that agitated you. How do you feel?

I have the opportunity to use it on an acquaintance recently and I immediately felt sad for him. I felt life is short and I felt sad for him for not given the opportunities to experience and learn that resulted in his recent action.

Maybe he was never allowed to fail in life that resulted in him putting winning and his ego above everything else. Maybe the person he intended to help is so important to him that he had no second thought on the negative consequences of others around the person he so wanted to help. Maybe he was never given a chance to experience or learnt how it feel to have his well-being, quality of life and even safety decided by another person. Maybe he did not know what right livelihood is or care less about it.

Having those thoughts in mind, I stopped attacking his character and instead attempted to explain and seek his understanding on the consequences of his possible decision.

I wish him well.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Have a burger, have a Prosper-Charity CNY!!!

Do you know that from now till 31 Jan 2012, McDonald’s will be donating 10cents per sale of Prosperity Burger meals to MINDS! 

Let's eat... yummy.  ;P~

Monday 23 January 2012

Happy Chinese New Year!!!





I suck, I Suck and I SUCK all the bad luck, bad feeling and unhappiness away. Clearing space for a flowery dragonsss Chinese New Year!


Happy Chinese New Year to all!!!

Sunday 22 January 2012

Mummy and 小tz





yt         : "Ouch!!!"
tz     : "What happened mummy?"
yt         : "The needle poked me."
tz     : "Where is the needle? I scold the naughty needle for you."
yt         : "... ... ..."



yt         :"Why nobody come and "sayang" me?"
tz     : "Mummy, you are an adult. You can take care of yourself."
yt         : "... ... ..."

Friday 20 January 2012

2012 goal 1/3 achieved!


Yippee! I achieved my first goal this year by getting my blog up and running!


1 goal completed, with 2 outstanding as at 20 January 2012. Out of the 2 outstanding goals, one of the goals is to achieve ideal BMI with weight at 66kg. Yayaya… I know I talk for so long, but I am serious this time.
;->

Sunday 15 January 2012

A beautiful Sunday!

Saw a gentleman with intellectual disability walked quickly towards the “7-Eleven” in front. At the glass door, he pulled it open, smiled and gestured to the little girl, who was struggling to open it, to go in.

The pleasant surprise came when instead of entering the store after the little girl; he proceeded with his journey ahead. He did not stop to wait for the girl or her family to thank him for his little kindness

A great start to a beautiful Sunday!

Saturday 14 January 2012

Disabled spider.




yt: "tz, ask daddy why he built a disabled spider with only 6 legs?"

me: " tz, tell mummy it is a monster spider that's why it is different."

Love~

You are the reason why I am still awake at this hour!

Following and watching the recording of you can be so challenging. Ah~ "Code of Honour", what a love-hate relationship. 
:-\

Tuesday 10 January 2012

yt & Co.

yt & Co.'s new menu: The add everything, messy and yummy soup!


Don't bother to order. Its limited edition as usual and it's sold out even before you can place your order. Sigh~

Frog in a well.


Do you want to be the frog living in a well, enjoy being a friend or a follower of the frog living in a well?

While the talk about the frog in the well is old, it is still not difficult to spot a frog living in its well in our current world. People with the frog's mentality who still believes that they knows everything, refuse to listen to others and understand others perspective in looking at the same issue. Having such a mentality drives others away and has a great impact for leader. People will leave physically or if not, becomes emotionally detached.

In case you had not heard about the talk, it is about the frog that lives in a well and chooses to look at the world from his well. Thinking he knows everything and does not believes that the world is bigger than what he sees.

Someone ever taught me a great way of reminding me not to be that frog in the well. Reminding myself and telling others that "I know nothing".

Reminding us that we know nothing allows us to learn from others, while telling others encourage them not to apply selective sharing, censoring what they think we already know.

Knowing nothing means we will always be open to have our ideas challenged. We will not feel embarrassed and spend time working as a team towards a common goal, instead of wasting time defending our ideas.

Knowing nothing reminds us not to use our experience and be judgmental on how others handle their problem. We will understand that every single person's way of coping is different depending on their up-bringing, experience, skills and supports available. We will attempt to understands and support them (if we choose) from their perspective and not ours.

I believe in this approach and had been trying to adopt it as far as I could. Is it workable?

Saturday 7 January 2012

The beautiful Kukup.

Ever went for holiday staying in wooden houses without proper plumbing system and eating home cooked food? I tried that simple kampong living for 2 days 1 night 10 years ago on 10th June 2002. 

It was a retreat organized by our agency leader then when I was working as a Financial Advisor (or Insurance Agent, an old term that is more familiar with lots of people). It is still deep in my memory because at that time, at the age of 34, that was my third trip out of Singapore and my very first holiday overseas! In today's standard, I likely to be labeled as an under-exposed "child" having only ate MacDonald’s when I collected my GCE "O" Level result, with my first trip out of Singapore to Johor Bahru at age 23 while serving my National Service, fly to Bangkok at age 30 and had my first overseas holiday at age 34.

Ops! I am out of topic as usual again. Blame it on my age, not me for being long-winded. ;P

The journey started from World Trade Centre (yes, the old Harbourfront) boarding the boat to Kukup. Just, I say just in case your geography knowledge is as good as mine then, Kukup is part of Malaysia and not Indonesia as I had earlier thought so.

After having waited for another 30 minutes, they finally open the gate for us to board the boat. I really cannot understand how the ferry terminal operates, really. While the screen keeps flashing "Boarding Now", we were made to "Gong Gong" (stupidly) stands outside the gate for half an hour.

The journey on board the boat is as “interesting” as the experience at the gate. After boarding the boat, we rushed to the basement section of the boat thinking to have a cozy environment. We regretted later. Not only was it very squeeze with poor air conditioning, the poor natural lightings through a row of 20cm tall windows at the top of the cabin make us feel like illegal immigrates. 30 minutes through the journey, someone started humming the song “Wu Zuo Nan Yang”, an old SBC local drama series talking about China’s refugees’ life in the old Singapore. To make matter worst, one person started to vomit in the cabin! Eeeeeeek!!! Looking around, everybody tried very hard to lock their senses for the “ENTERTAINING” Smell, Sounds and Sight. Have you tried that? 
;->

Kukup is a Ke-Long style “kampong” (village) where the houses were built above the “SEA”. It's really scary as there were no proper plumbing systems, with all the stuff you release while visiting the toilet goes directly into the sea below. The contribution was so enriching that the surrounding sea were marked with a nice brownish colour. Not bad for a change to see that ocean need not always be blue. How I hope I know this logic earlier so that I can challenge my primary school teacher about it. Hee... 

I got very worried as I might not be able to survive the 2 days 1 night holiday. Luckily our resort was still very clean and proper. Well, the fact that you still contribute to the ocean when you visit the toilet remains. We were even joking about how nice it would be if the “MUD” below change into clear white sand and the brownish water change into crystal clear sea water. It will be so relaxing that we can just jump off from our resort to enjoy a good swim. Now, err.... die die also hold tightly to the railings, not wanting to fall and have a very good "MUD" bath. Haha… 

By the way, the journey to our resort was equally scary. All houses in those areas were joined using 1m wide timber platform. While most had changed into concrete platform, there were no railings on either sides of the platform. Imagine again if you accidental fell into the... Ops, here I go again. Can you feel how disturbed I am? 
:-\

The only thing good about this trip is EAT! Yes!!! We eat and Eat and EAT. 

Yummy!!! ;-P~

Upon reaching at around 4:30pm, we ate a simple meal at the restaurant, and then we had BBQ seafood (cooked and served) around 8pm. The next morning when we wake up, breakfast was served and followed by tea-break at 10am again. The last meal was at the restaurant before we board the boat back to Singapore. I had totally enjoyed myself eating those home cooked meals with kampong taste! 
:-D~

What I really enjoyed most is the “kampong” (village) lifestyle and spirit they have at Kukup. Everybody seems to be taking things easily and they are so close to each other. There were no computers, internet connections, and none were seen with eyes glued to their television for drama series or stocks information. Thinking about it now, the environment really suits people with intellectual disability where the core contribution for all individuals is hard work and not intelligence. Bringing people together and not isolate people with intellectual disability. Walking around the place during the 2 days, I observed that most people left their doors opened regardless whether it’s day or night, and whether they are in or out of their house. This kampong spirit can hardly be seen in Singapore now.

I wondering if Kukup is still the same after 10 years.

Thursday 5 January 2012

Check it out!

What are at the end of the path? 

You can find out yourself by walking down the path. Enjoy the sea breeze along your way, look at the beautiful flowers, immerse yourself seeing others enjoying the walk and give yourself a chance to have a workout. All of those benefits even before finding out what are at the end of the path.

You can get someone to check it out for you. As long as you are willing to listen with an open mind, you get to know and appreciate other’s experience, in addition to knowing what are at the end of the path from another person’s perspective. 

You can take out your iPhone or iPad and just google for the answer or image sitting at where you are. Possibility reading and viewing an outdated information or image, believing that all the people, scenery and things at the end of the path remains still and wait for you to appreciate. 

You can also choose not to know what are at the end of the path.

You decide.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

I am a vampire!

Stepping out of the building yesterday afternoon, I soon discovered that I had suddenly turned into a vampire under the mercy of the bright sun. My vision was blurred and my head was pounding. With a weak body and held on to the railing, I walked as fast as I could to the MRT Station entrance 10 meters away to hide from the killing sun, before I get destroyed. Once under the shelter and away from the sun, I vowed not to come out from the comfort of the shelter till night falls.

Ah~ the joy after dilating my pupils for my eyes screening.

The episode provided me with the opportunity to appreciate my vision. The experience terrified me for almost 5 hours when I got blurred vision, had problem replying sms and catching up with my reading. How fortunate I am to have a pair of working eyes to be able to read and appreciate the view of this beautiful world.

Once out from hiding and under the comfort of the night, this vampire was given the opportunity to use his blessed vision to spot an unconscious man in need. He was delighted to be able to help and pay forward for his good health.

I cleared my screening. Yippee!!!

Monday 2 January 2012

I TREAT EVERYBODY EQUALLY!!!

"I TREAT EVERYBODY EQUALLY!!!"

"Yeah, right. Nonsense!" I felt like telling the lady who raised her voice talking to her friend in the MRT train. 

How can we and are we able treat everybody equally (1) with only 24 hours a day, (2) know that we love some people more than others and (3) aware that different people requires different type and intensity of support at different times of their life.

Saying this in the hope to receive gratitude and support from everybody, I rather being honest to let others know the reason why I am treating some people better than others.

For me, it is always wife, daughter, the team at work, then followed by others based on the approach of we and the principle of right livelihood.

Sunday 1 January 2012

New Year Countdown.

After so many years, it feels great to countdown to a New Year! We had our little countdown at home last night.

We pass by an area where people were seen preparing for the countdown on our way home last night and 小tz was so exited about it. She was really happy when we approved her request for the countdown. Not sure if it is the chance to not sleep till midnight that is exciting her or the ability to do the countdown with TCS's live broadcast at Vivo City?

I am the unofficial time-keeper for the event with both wife and daughter saying "... call me when countdown started". One is busy with her work, while the other looks tired and trying to take a nap. Hmm…

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! Happy New Year for 2012!!!